I can now personally confirm that Speedo’s ballyhooed LZR Racer swimsuit does make you go faster. It helped me annihilate my predicted time in Sunday’s media 50-meter freestyle here in Omaha, Neb.

Then again, my predicted time was Tuesday.

In what was no doubt a poorly disguised plot to make the swimming media look bad – in more ways than one – the Olympic Trials let the media literally test the waters at the Qwest Center. Omega organized it, presumably in hopes of testing its new hourglass timepiece.

I did it merely to see what it’s like to swim in what Michael Phelps calls “the fastest swimsuit in the world,” to have some fun after a hectic week and to finally give the slacker lifeguards here something to do.

We didn’t know what would be harder, swimming the 50-meter pool without making a fool of ourselves or getting into the LZR Racer and looking worse. We’d heard horror stories. Natalie Coughlin, the U.S. swimming star, says it takes her 25 minutes to put it on. It takes me less time to don a wetsuit and scuba gear. Then again, speed isn’t a huge component in scuba diving.